Social media site Facebook started off as a way for college students to connect with one another. Since its fairly humble beginnings in a Harvard dorm room, it has grown into a global phenomenon. With over 1.13 billion daily users, it is the world’s largest and most highly-trafficked social media sites. And while it was originally intended only for personal use, it has also become a marketing powerhouse for the businesses who use it. In fact, there are very few businesses that can afford to ignore Facebook as a way of reaching potential customers.

One of the most effective ways to put Facebook to work for your business is to use it to generate leads. Lead generation – attracting new customers – is an expensive and time-consuming thing. The benefit of using social media for lead generation is that it is relatively inexpensive. If you do a good job of creating valuable and shareable content, it can be an incredibly powerful tool when it comes to growing your business.

With that in mind, here are ten ideas you can use to turn your Facebook posts into lead generation tools.

Share your blog posts on Facebook. You don’t have to share every post, but it is a very good idea to share those posts that have done the best job of generating leads for you. Check your blog stats and then schedule the posts that are performing for posting on Facebook. Research shows that blog posts that lead off with an anchor text call to action tend to generate as much as 93% more leads than blog posts without one, so keep that in mind.

Post a direct link to your landing page. There’s nothing wrong with keeping things simple. If you’ve got a great looking landing page, use a graphic from it and post it with a lead-in that touts what you have to offer. You’ll be surprised by how many leads you can generate with this simple strategy.

Facebook’s algorithms are changing all the time. One of the things that has changed is that videos are given preferred status and can generate 135% greater organic reach than photos or other content. Instead of simply posting a link, try embedding a video instead. If you’ve already got a video on your landing page you can use that, or you might consider creating a unique video just for Facebook users.

If you haven’t tried Facebook Live, the social media site’s new live video option, now is the time to start. Live videos tend to get a great deal of engagement. Facebook’s initial trial run revealed that live videos got approximately 10 times more comments that regular videos. Another benefit of live video is that it is meant to be spontaneous. You can shoot a live video on a shoestring budget, and you don’t have to worry about scripting it. You can even solicit comments and questions from viewers, which makes it a great way to keep people engaged and interested.

Take advantage of the new Facebook Call to Action button. Did you know that you can now include a call to action right at the top of your Facebook page, just underneath your cover photo? Many companies are using the new CTA and finding that it helps with lead generation by making it very easy for new followers to respond to your CTA.

Pin your lead generation posts to the top of your Timeline. This is an extremely simple, free strategy that you can use to make sure your lead gen posts don’t get lost when you post new content. Obviously every post you put up can’t be a direct marketing appeal, but you can simply choose the “Pin this Post” option to keep your lead gen visible at all time. It’s a good idea to update it regularly so that people don’t get sick of seeing it there.

Give away a free product. Everybody loves a freebie and your Facebook followers are no exception. The people who follow you aren’t necessarily on your list, but you can get them to sign up by offering them an incentive. All you need to do is post a notice about your contest, promote it for a few dollars a day if you want to, and watch the leads flow in.

Speaking of your product, you should consider asking people for opinions of your product. One way to do that is to offer a free trial or sample. Post the offer on Facebook, link to your landing page, and ask people to comment with questions or opinions about what they experience.

Offer a webinar and create a new Facebook event page to go with it. An event page requires your followers to specify whether they will attend your webinar or not. You can require subscription to your list as a prerequisite for signing up for the webinar.

Finally, consider boosting any (or all) of the above posts to make sure that they are seen. Facebook’s algorithms are problematic for many marketers because they mean that all of your followers will not see your posts. However, if you boost your post and choose the “Followers and friends of followers” option, you can be sure that your post will be seen by every one of your Facebook fans – and by all of their social media connections as well. It’s a great way to grow your list for a relatively small amount of money. (You can boost a post for as little as one dollar per day.)

The bottom line is that Facebook can be an extremely easy and powerful way to generate leads if you make proper use of it. These ten ideas can get your started – and get the leads rolling in.​